Earth-moving machines are used in various operations for road building, grading, building, mining, etc. Agricultural implements are used for various operations related to farming including plowing, seeding, spraying, harvesting, etc. In both situations, a vehicle having three or more wheels, or two or more treads, may have an implement attached. The implement may be a blade, scoop, hoe, plow, grader, or any other possible implement. The implement may be attached to the vehicle by one or more articulating arms, and may be rotatable in three dimensions. The position and angle of the implement may therefore be adjusted by an operator in the vehicle using hydraulic controls, or by any other appropriate control mechanism.
The location and angle of an implement have conventionally been determined based on a determination by an operator based on visual assessment. A demand for increased precision in many operations has arisen recently in order to reduce costs and/or improve quality of a finished product. Sensors have therefore been utilized to determine position and angle of an implement of a vehicle. However, due to the extreme circumstances under which these sensors must operate, a high failure rate and/or a low accuracy have been until now realized.
Global positioning systems (GPS) have been used to position people and vehicles. Additionally, GPS systems have been located on implements to provide location information for the implement. However, positioning the sensitive electronics related to a GPS on an implement may result in system failures and degraded position information.
A more accurate system and method for positioning an implement on a vehicle are therefore required.